Lei Jun Vs. Kaifu Lee, Angel Investor Vs. Innovation Works

Lei Jun, is the board chairman of UCWeb, the leading Chinese mobile browser; ex-executive director of Kingsoft; co-founder of Joyo.com which is sold to Amazon at 2004.

Kaifu Lee, was working for Apple, SGI, Microsoft as vice president and Google China as CEO, one of the most influential figures in China and even in the world.

Both are working with startups, the difference is that Lei Jun plays his role as an angel investor and Kaifu Lee set up a startup incubator called Innovation Works. The former may believe market will test everything, the latter may think good startups need well-incubated before fully enters the market.

With totally different strategy, both are looking at the same market: mobile market. Lei Jun invested companies such as UCWeb which claims over 100million users and 50billion monthly pv and over 400million downloads; Kaifu Lee has raised rmb 1billion within a year and now has 13 companies including Dianxin (mobile OS), Wandoujia (a mobile phone management tool) etc in its Innovation Works platform and 7 startups in its Y-combinator like program. The latest company invested by Lei Jun is Xiaomi, a startup focus on iPhone and Android development. The rumor today said Xiaomi has raised another round of $35million from Morningside Venture and Qiming Venture partner. The valuation of Xiaomi is reported at $200million. Xiaomi has developed several cool applications including Xiaomi Reader (iBooks like) and Miliao (a copycat of Kik).

I would not say it is going to be a competition. It might make no sense if I ask you the question: if you are doing a mobile-related startup and both Lei Jun and Kaifu Lee give you a offer, which one will you go for? 🙂